DCPAPA: Springtime for Plein Air Painters!!

Tom Gilbert in action!

It's that time again.  Our first outing will be on May 2nd with following painting dates on May 16 & 25.  We will post the time and locations soon!!  If any members have photos of their paintings or notices, etc they would like to post and are not yet a blog author please email me for more information.  We love to have our members work posted here.  Also if there are any plein air shows or events you want us to know about just let me or Tom know.  My email is: pwafer@charter.net   Pat 

Jonathan Wilde: Mostly From My Collection - at the Monroe Art Center, Monroe WI

Carolyn Liedtke Exhibit

J. Carolyn Liedtke was born and raised in Chicago, now lives in rural Wisconsin, enjoying the ever-changing landscapes and colorful creatures that inspire her paintings, mostly done on location. She studied fine arts at the School of the Art Institute, the American Academy of Art, and was inspired by a series of plein air watercolor workshops at Oakton Community College. She is a founding member and past president of the Illinois Watercolor Society and is now affiliated with several Wisconsin arts alliances and plein air painting groups. She has coordinated art exhibits for the Wisconsin Regional Arts Association and for many years wrote weekly articles on the Art Scene for local newspapers. She has also written an illustrated e-book, “Watercolor Journeys,” available on Kindle and the Apple ArtsStore.  See galleries of paintings on her website: www.keyartworks.com.

My show of 26 oil and pastel paintings is at Bethel Lutheran Church in Madison,WI through April 16.  With the exception of the one abstract oil, everything is or was painted from a plein air piece. The largest (36 x 48) was inspired by a 3" x 5" pastel plein air sketch.  The portrait sketches are from our weekly figure painting group (Mon. nights) at Winnebago Studios on the east side (Phil Salamone, Atwood Atelier).  Thurs and Sat. morning sessions are also open.    John Mix

DCPAPA Exhibit

Another February Warm Spell Painting

Here's a painting showing the black ice on a pond in Edna Taylor Park.

Lake Monona 2-22-17

I would have been mad at myself for not getting out during this warm spell. The ice was melting as fast as I painted it.

Near St. Augustine

I forget the name of this park. It was neat and the first place I sat and painted. It turned out to be the least memorable but it was a nice quiet sit. I swear the water didn't look blue when I was there, lol.

March in Colorado

Like many of you, I've been craving winter this year. Finally, last weekend, I found winter, in Aspen, Co. Here's a quick morning painting I did in Aspen Meadows. Wish I had a few more days to spend there!

Aspen Meadows, oil, 12"x16"

I took my easel to Florida

I hope everyone is having a good winter. I just remembered my password and see you guys have been busy. I've been practicing from photos this winter but went to Florida for a few weeks in January. Here is the first one I finished. I went back to this spot a few days and just dabbled because it was a great place to hang out. I look forward to browsing through what I've missed here.

Fake Winter Painting

This is a painting I did at Indian Lake on February 22nd, so it must be a winter painting.  But it was 68 degrees with no snow.  So I'm calling it a fake winter painting (where have I heard that before?).  I may have got a bit sloppy with this one but I think it somewhat captures the atmosphere of the day.

Tom

Indian Lake County Park

This was the sunset tonight at Indian Lake County Park.  It looks like they are building a new shelter and more substantial restroom building.  I painted this 6x6 gouache on Ampersand Aquaboard while I sat and listened to cranes, geese and Red-winged blackbirds.  

Trisha Duren Art Show

Summer Painting Completed

On August 4th we had a group outing at Pheasant Branch that was cut short by a thunderstorm.  I had, however, managed to complete an underpainting. After having that underpainting on my shelf for months I just finished it (with an invented sky and light effects).  With this dreary, wet weather we've been having it's nice to recall some summer scenes by painting.

Tom

Madison WRAP show and workshop

The Madison WRAP show is fast approaching! Registration deadline is Friday Jan 20, 2017. Artwork will be exhibited at the UW Pyle Center Feb 25 - April 8. Workshop is at the Pyle Center on Saturday April 8 (9am-3:30pm). To register online, go to: http://continuingstudies.wisc.edu/…/wisco…/wrap-schedule.htm and send your $30 registration check (payable to Vina Yang) to Vina Yang, 3423 Ice Age Ln, Verona WI 53593. Registration and payment must be made by Jan 20.

This year's workshop guest Judge and Speaker is multifaceted artist Chuck Bauer. Chuck has a BFA in Fine Arts and MA in Painting and is also the retired president, co-owner and co-founder (1972) of Madison's popular retail store, The Soap Opera, on State Street. Chuck is well known for his plein air paintings which often focus on familiar Wisconsin rural scenes as well as on traditional urban neighborhood architectures. Wherever he goes, he likes to keep his painting supplies close by and works on small canvases whenever a worthy subject appears. Chuck says his early training as an abstract painter today fuels his approach to realistic topics. He likes to use color expressively and likes techniques that convey nostalgia and tranquility. Chuck strives for solid composition but also values playful and sometimes unexpected results. Besides working in oil and acrylics, he is successful in watercolor, India ink washes, and fired ceramic art tiles. Chuck has participated in 14 one-man shows and 14 juried exhibitions in the Dane County area since 1991 and his work has been shown in 12 Wisconsin galleries. He has been a past instructor at the Green Lake Studio Workshop.

Plein air indoors

 We've had only a couple of snowy days this winter so far. Before this wood made its way into the fireplace I simply had to paint it!

Firewood, oil on canvas panel, 16"x20"

Sugar River @ Monroe Arts Center February 3rd - March 24th

Here's a landscape painting show well worth the trip to Monroe.  Jan Norsetter will have work in it.  Any other DCPAPA painters showing work in this one?  It was an excellent show last year and I look forward to seeing this one.  

Goodbye to November

With fewer plein air outings in the last month I've been catching up on finishing paintings I've had sitting around for some time.  And here's one that I think has a nice November feel about it.  Thought I'd get this in before we switch to snow paintings.

Tom Gilbert

Urban Sketchers Madison

Here are links to the blogs for the regional chapter in Madison and the international sketching group, Urban Sketchers: drawmadison.blogspot.com., www.urbansketchers.org/  .  I'm one of the administrators for the Madison group and we sketch on the 2nd Sunday of the month (except December) and occasional Saturdays as well.  Our schedule can be found on the Events calendar on our blog.  Our group began in 2011 and was called Draw Madison until last spring when we were invited to join Urban Sketchers as a regional chapter.  The group is open to anyone who likes to draw from life and there are no dues.  In warm weather we like to sketch outdoors but in winter we sketch in places like coffee shops, museums and Olbrich Garden's conservatory.  Sketchers use a variety of mediums from graphite and ink to watercolor and soft pastel.  It is much like plein air painting in that we draw from life what is going on around us.   Check out the Urban Sketchers blog to see interesting sketches from all over the globe.  Next summer the annual symposium for Urban Sketchers will be held in Chicago July 25-29.  It has not been in the US since the first one was held in Portland in 2010 so we are pretty excited and looking forward to meeting some of our favorite artists and attending their workshops. We hope you will join us sometime this winter when it's too cold to be painting en plein air! 

Tenney Park 11-7-16

I just got my new easel in the mail on Monday and had to go out for a bit. I'm an oil painter now. It's official, lol. Anyway I managed to get out late and get a good start. I learned a lot that will speed me up next time at home. This has about six hours into it.

Warner Park 10-19-16

I may as well post this too. I did double duty this day. We went to Lodi this day I think. This was done at Warner Park last month. 11x14 acrylic on canvas

Indian Lake 11-3-16

Here is my painting from Indian Lake. I got there early and the sun was overhead and the water just wasn't colorful. I went down in the valley and found a really cool spot. I thought sure I'd see deer. This was my first try at oils in the field. They say when you can't get it keep adding paint? Anyway I did that and made it a knife painting mostly.

Indian Lake Paintings

Here's not only my painting from last Thursday but another Indian Lake view painted in September.  The latter is the view of the hillside above the lake from the smaller parking lot at the other end of the lake (by the dog park area).  Both of these started as plein air but also had substantial studio finishing.  Last Thursday I just ran out of time as the light disappeared quicker than I expected for an afternoon start.

I normally stop the group outings about now but if this weather continues we may be able to do one more.  Regardless, over the winter I expect many of you will still be getting out occasionally and please feel free to post your paintings.  I also want to thank all of you who came out and painted and made this a successful year for the group.  And I'll contact everyone again next spring to continue the group outings.

Tom Gilbert

Fall colors

Arboretum, oil, 12"x16".

Here's some fall colors from an outing to the Arboretum a couple of weeks ago. Unfortumetely, I won't be able to join the group today at the Indian lake.

Plein Air Painting Nov. 3rd

We will paint this Thursday Nov. 3rd at Indian Lake. (Changed from Wed. due to weather forecast).  Meet at 3pm in the main parking lot.

Wisconsin River October 29th

The Wisconsin River at Prairie du Sac


Tom said he wanted some fall color so here's a pastel painting I did on Saturday late in the afternoon in a tiny park on the main drag.  It was pleasant even with the traffic noise.  The oaks were all turning dark red and I noticed alot of gold in the leaves on the way home.  Hopefully it will pretty colorful at Indian Lake on Wednesday.

Darya Vassina Paintings

Darya currently has some of her paintings on display at the Ancora Coffee shop on University Avenue.  The show runs through November.  Here's two of the paintings being shown.  I really like the rich textures in Darya's paintings.

As promised, here's the painting I painted at the lookout on Skyline Rd. in Peninsula State Park...

Fall Colors

Here's a plein air painting from a Madison east side neighborhood that I did a few days ago when the sun was still out.  I think our blog needs a few fall color paintings.  Feel free to post them.

Tom

Door County October 22 - Rowley's Bay Nature Conservancy and Famous DCPAPA Painter!!

Last week I visited Door County and while I did some watercolor sketching, the sketches I enjoyed doing the most were with charcoal and charcoal pencil one afternoon on Rowley's Bay.   I used a kneaded eraser as a drawing tool which was very helpful for rendering highlights and texture.  It was sort of ironic that with all that gorgeous color everywhere my most successful sketches were with charcoal.

I got a big surprise on Friday when I picked up the newest Peninsula Pulse and thought I recognized a fellow painter on the cover!  Sure enough, her name was on the inside cover and I called her to congratulate her on the nice photo.  She had attended a class at Bjorklunden that week.  Yes, it's Jan Feyzi!!  She was painting the fabulous view from an overlook in Peninsula State Park when a local photographer came by.  Hopefully Jan will post some of her paintings from the week.

Cherokee Marsh 10-18-2016

This was done with a plein air partner way down by the water on a boardwalk during a perfect day. Acrylic on canvas 11x14   

Lodi Ice Age Trail 10-19-2016

This was my second outing and such a great place to go. I got there early and made it to the to top the hill for this great view. I learned a lot about time management and not to leave so much foreground visible. I had to do almost all of it in the studio. Acrylic on canvas 11x14

Cam Rock Park Shelter #3 10-5-2016

Hi all. This is my first post on here so I hope I do it right. I am a group newbie but longtime artist. Plein air painting comes hard to me being detail oriented and shooting for realism a quick study is hard to call finished. I hope to loosen up and pick up my pace as time goes on. I am starting with acrylics because I feel they are forgiving and kind of like training wheels. I hope to graduate to oils soon. It was great to meet and have dinner with a few members and hope to do it again.

Lodi Segment of Ice Age Trail

We had a nice evening for painting yesterday.  I'm still struggling with trying to salvage my painting from it, but here's a photo of how it looked when I left.  Hope you're all enjoying the fall colors.

Tom

Bluff Strokes

I just returned from painting at the BluffStrokes plein air event in Dubuque.  It was a nice event, reasonably well organized, and with some great painting locations.  I'd say it was similar to Mineral Point's "Paint the Point" except Dubuque is a much larger city.  Dubuque has many old and interesting buildings and on the north and south river front areas are painting locations from up on the bluffs with great views.  Plus there are various places along the river front to paint.  They had a total of $10,000 in awards and about 50 painters participating.

It was unfortunate that, for the most part, the fall colors weren't out in effect yet.  The painting area included both Dubuque and the entire county, but in driving around the country side it seemed like maybe 90% of the roads had steep or narrow shoulders, such that it was impossible to pull over and paint by the side of the road.  But there were still many good painting areas in the city and parks.

There was a "Quick-Paint" and nocturne painting events.  Painters could enter three paintings in the main competition.  I didn't win anything, but, to my surprise, did sell three paintings.  Jim Faecke (from our group) also painted there.  I believe he won an "honorable mention" award.  And I saw his nocturne that was really an exceptional piece.  I had to miss the final day when they had the public sale, and the awards presentation, so I don't know yet who won the top prizes (1st prize was $2,000).

I'm attaching a photo I took of a cool river boat that Jim and I saw coming down the river from Eagle Point Park.  Plus two of my paintings that I sold.  I entitled the one painting "Distant Train" just so people would know those rectangular boxes were supposed to be a freight train.

Cam Rock Shelter 3 View

Cam Rock Park paintout.

Cam Rock park at dusk, oil on canvas panel, 12"x16".

Cam Rock Park 10/5/16

Small soft pastel sketch on Diane Townsend pastel paper

It turned out to be a lovely afternoon at Cam Rock Park.  I think 7 painters came including one who was joining us for the first time. (Welcome, Rick!)  Four of us went out for supper and I must say I was a bit underwhelmed by the pub but the company was excellent and we enjoyed Darya's stories of the Plein Air Conventions - she has attended every one of them!  I think Diane Townsend stopped making this paper sometime ago but I still have a couple sheets.  I believe it is Rives BFK with some kind of grit fixed to it.  It was nice paper but Rives BFK is fine for pastels just as it is, too.  

Plein Air Painting October 5th - Cam Rock Park

View from Parking area #3

Shelter at Parking area #3

We will meet here at Parking area #3 at 3:30 pm for painting until dusk and go for supper after.  I think last year we ate at the Keystone Grill in Cambridge and it was really good.  Does anyone remember?  We can figure it out on Wed.  I think these photos are from spring so hopefully it will have a bit more color now although the grass is still SO green from all the rain.